Greek Identity: Representation, Migration, and Belonging.
May 5, 2025
In the 21st century, Greece has been shaped by what scholars and policymakers describe as a “polycrisis”, a convergence of the 2009 economic collapse, the ongoing refugee crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and rising political instability. These overlapping crises have not only strained Greece’s social structure but have also challenged the foundations of national identity and belonging. In this context, cinema has become a powerful cultural space for representing what it means to be Greek today. As Stuart Hall writes, “culture is not so much a set of things as a process, a set of practices,” and meaning, central to identity, is “constantly being produced and exchanged in every personal and social interaction.”[1] Cinema, therefore, serves as a representational system through which contemporary concerns, historical memory, and social change are expressed.
This paper explores how recent Greek films submitted to the 2025 Los Angeles Greek Film Festival and some others that were screened in the LMU Greek Cinema Week: Homage to Xenios Zeus[2], engage with themes of migration, displacement, and belonging to reflect and reshape contemporary notions of Greekness. Drawing on Richard Clogg’s A Concise History of Greece and the theoretical framework of Hellenisms, this paper argues that modern Greek identity, also known as Neohellenic identity, is a historically constructed and ideologically shaped concept that has been continuously redefined through conflict, migration, and the collision of different cultural perspectives.[3]
As Richard Clogg explains in Chapter 3, Neohellenic identity emerged in the 19th century following Greece’s independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was driven by the “Great Idea, ” or Megali Idea, as it was described in the text, which envisioned the creation of a unified Greek nation based on Orthodox Christianity, language, and a symbolic connection to classical antiquity.[4] This nationalist vision prioritized cultural and ethnic homogeneity, often at the expense of minority populations and diasporic communities.[5] Similarly, Katerina Zacharia, Artemis Leontis, and Yiorgos Anagnostou; writers in Hellenisms (2016), critique in different chapters this essentialist model, arguing that Greek identity has been shaped by diasporic experiences, intercultural contact, and myth-making rather than a fixed cultural core.[6]
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, waves of migration, including the forced displacement following the Asia Minor Catastrophe (1922), labor migration to Western Europe in the 1960s, and recent refugee arrivals from the Middle East and Central Asia, have further complicated the narrative of a unified Greek identity.[7] These migrations have generated what Yiorgos Anagnostous calls “zones of cultural mixture” and “syncretic selves,” revealing how Greekness is constantly negotiated across borders and generations.[8]
With these frameworks in mind, this paper analyzes — Greek films. On the one hand, the paper focuses mainly in three long features that were submitted to the 2025 Los Angeles Greek Film Festival: A Couple of Years (2024) by Lydia Konsta (85 mins), Giannis in the Cities by Eleni Alexandrakis (90 mins) and The Return that never was (Cyprus 1974-2024) by Athanasios Gioumpasis (88 mins). It also considers short submissions like Between a rock and a hard place (2024) by Thanos Liberopoulos (17 mins), and Unforgettable Homeland, Asia Minor (2024) by Irini Sarioglou (37 mins). Adittionally, it analyses scenes from the LMU Greek Cinema Week: Homage to Xenios Zeus films Xenia (2014) by Panos Koutras (128 mins), Hostage (2005) by Konstantinos Giannaris (105 mins), and Black Stone (2022) by Spiros Jakovides (87 mins). Each of these films engages with historical memory, racialized difference, or diasporic longing, offering new ways to think about Greek identity in an era of global crisis and cultural transformation.
By portraying different realities of historical events, these films raise multiple concerns about identity. Many of them are documentaries, which, as Stuart Hall notes, “Inform us about the world we live in, the world around us that we are unfamiliar with, and the lives of people like and unlike us.”[9] This format offers a powerful lens for understanding the challenges people face in constructing identity within an ever-changing world. Collectively, by grounding their narratives in Greek historical context while allowing audiences to connect with real individuals and experiences, these films challenge essentialist notions of Greekness and instead present it as plural, relational, and dynamic.
Part I: Historical Foundations and Forced Migration
The first major rupture in modern Greek identity that this papers aims to introduce, occurred in the early 20th century with the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922, following Greece’s war with Turkey. As Richard Clogg explains, the vision of a unified Greek state, rooted in the Megali Idea, or “Great Idea”, aimed to expand Greek territory to include all historically Greek lands, particularly in Asia Minor.[10] However, the defeat of Greek forces by Turkish troops under Mustafa Kemal led to a devastating reversal. On August 26, 1922, Turkish forces entered Smyrna, now known as İzmir, setting the city ablaze and killing an estimated 30,000 people.[11] The subsequent Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 formalized a compulsory population exchange, resulting in the forced displacement of 1.2 million Anatolian Greeks and approximately 400,000 Muslims from Greece.[12] In context, individuals who identified as Greek found themselves forced to leave their homeland, and, with it, the very foundations of their sense of belonging.
This mass uprooting represented both a demographic and psychological turning point. As Clogg notes, “the trauma of this mass uprooting, and the difficulties of integrating such a large number of refugees into an already impoverished country, had a profound and lasting effect on Greek society.”[13] It also reinforced an official narrative of Greekness that emphasized Orthodox Christianity, ethnic unity, and historical continuity with Byzantium and classical antiquity, marginalizing ethnic minorities and diasporic diversity in the process.[14]
The 2024 documentary Unforgettable Homeland, Asia Minor, directed by Irini Sarioglou and submitted to the 2025 Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, offers an intimate and historically grounded reflection on this traumatic event. Through the personal account of Vasiliki Ralli, an elderly woman who recounts her family’s experience during the Turkish invasion of September 1922, the film reflects on the forced displacement of Greek communities. While documenting the trauma of migration, it also captures the enduring emotional connection that displaced individuals continue to feel toward their homeland. From the beginning of the film, as she looks through old photographs, Vasiliki Ralli expresses that although she was born elsewhere, she identifies deeply with Asia Minor, which she considers her true homeland.[15] Later, through the reading of a letter and the viewing of images from Asia Minor, she conveys a profound sense of nostalgia for a place she was only meant to visit in her dreams.
Although Ralli and her family were able to build a life in the place to which they migrated, she continually affirms a sense of dual identity, if not a stronger emotional attachment to Asia Minor and a sense of belonging. Throughout the film, both her narrative and those of others convey a deep reluctance to leave their homeland, often expressing a desire not only to return but even to die in the land of their origins. This underscores the powerful emotional and cultural bond that persists through memory and inherited identity, even in the face of forced migration. This attachment stems from deep familial and ancestral ties that shape their sense of belonging. In this context, the film illustrates how Ralli and her family attempt to preserve what they perceive as “pure” Greekness, an identity rooted not in geography but in cultural memory and inherited tradition that brings them together and gives them a sense of belonging.
Through the use of archival footage and family photographs, Sarioglou visually reconstructs the journey of Vasiliki Ralli’s family, emphasizing the role of visual media in shaping and preserving cultural memory. Employing the expository mode of documentary filmmaking, the film adopts a didactic approach that, as Stuart Hall suggests, not only informs viewers about the historical events in Asia Minor but also frames how those events should be understood and emotionally processed. [16] At the same time, this aligns with Stuart Hall’s theory that “representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture” and that “culture depends on its participants interpreting meaningfully what is happening around them.”[17]
As Ralli affirms her identity through the memory of her family’s suffering, which is the culture, stories, and beliefs, she was raised with; the film illustrates how belonging is not solely tied to geography, but built through inherited trauma, emotional continuity, and collective storytelling. This process reflects what Yiorgos Anagnostou described in Hellenisms (2016) as “zones of cultural mixture,” in which identity is shaped through displacement and cultural negotiation rather than rootedness or purity.[18] For this reason, Ralli’s story serves as an example of how diasporic identities are constructed, not through rootedness or cultural purity, but through displacement, memory, and the intergenerational desire to preserve meaning. These identities are also sustained through the communal bonds formed in the aftermath of shared trauma. This foundation sets the stage for examining how modern Greek identity continues to be reshaped by migration, not only through the experience of departure, but also through the arrival of new populations, the confrontation of cultural difference, and the ongoing reinvention of what it means to be Greek.
Similarly, the film The Return that Never Was Cyprus, 1974 -2024 (2024), submitted in the 2025 Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, narrates the personal experiences of people living during and after the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus in July of 1974. As Richard Clogg describes, the military regime in Athens staged a coup against the Makarios regime in Cyprus. This led to the Turkish invasion of the northern part of the island and the de facto partition of Cyprus, where some 200,000 Greek Cypriots were displaced from the north. [19] This historical context underscores the significance of the testimonies in The Return That Never Was, which capture not only the lived trauma of displacement but also the broader geopolitical rupture that fractured Greek Cypriot identity.
The documentary shares the testimonies of 18 individuals who experienced the trauma of displacement firsthand. Through their stories, they recall the years of prosperity in the villages they once inhabited, describing them as moments when they truly felt happiness and belonging.[20] The film then transitions to the events of the invasion, detailing the specific areas that were occupied and highlighting the economic impact that followed, particularly the devastation of Cyprus’s agricultural and tourism sectors[21]. It goes on to show how, through community and solidarity, people were able to confront the chaos, fear, and confusion brought on by the destruction of their homes and the separation of families. Despite all the challenges, the film emphasizes the role of community and service in order to keep the sense of identity alive, noticing how, at the same time, displacement shapes not just personal identity, but also collective memory, echoing the themes of trauma, longing, and cultural preservation found in the other works discussed in this paper.
In one scene, an individual reflects on life after displacement, emphasizing the constant need to explain who they were and where they came from, as if identity had to be justified in every new space they entered. In this sense, they were not only Greeks anymore but “the Greek Cypriots” living in the free areas. [22] This shapes the understanding of a changing identity, and how, as explained before in this paper, the meaning of being Greek is a concept that is shaped by personal experiences, collective memory, and the ongoing negotiation between history, trauma, and belonging.
Part II: Migration to Greece and Redefining National Belonging
In recent decades, Greece has shifted from a country of emigration to one of immigration, receiving migrants from the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central Asia. This demographic transformation has challenged the traditional model of Greek identity, historically defined by ethnic and religious homogeneity. As Clogg notes, the Greek state sought to ensure “the cultural and ethnic homogeneity of the population,” often pressuring minorities to assimilate or emigrate.[23] These tensions are deeply reflected in contemporary Greek cinema.
As an example, in Black Stone (2022), directed by Spiros Jacovides and screened at the the LMU Greek Cinema Week: Homage to Xenios Zeus, the issue of race within Greece is explored. The film follows a Greek mother searching for her missing son, who has fled with his pregnant girlfriend, because he knew his mother would refuse to accept his girlfriend’s African heritage. Her rejection is not based on experience, but on cultural stereotypes and inherited fears about racial difference. This aligns with Stuart Hall’s theory that “meaning depends on the difference between opposites,” where the figure of the racialized “Other” becomes essential to the dominant culture’s self-definition.[24] Africans in Europe, Hall writes, were often “identified with nature” and associated with primitivism, contrasting the supposed civility of European identity.[25] Given that the mother belongs to an older generation and upholds a more conservative understanding of Greek identity, it is unsurprising that she resisted the idea of her descendants forming relationships outside what she perceived as “pure” Greekness.
However, the complexities of race and identity become more explicitly addressed through her encounter with a Black taxi driver who offers to help her find her missing son. Initially, she refuses to speak to him and begins criticizing him based solely on his skin color, assuming he is African. This assumption ignores the fact that he considers himself fully Greek and has never been out of Greece.[26] This moment underscores the mother’s racialized assumptions and highlights the gap between appearance and cultural belonging. However, through shared experiences while trying to find the mother’s missing son, she slowly comes to accept him, not merely as a person different to her, but as family. By the end of the film, she refers to him as her son. This transformation challenges essentialist notions of identity and supports Hall’s idea that meaning and belonging are “constantly being produced and exchanged” through human interaction.[27] This journey also illustrates how shared space and emotional vulnerability can reshape cultural boundaries to create community and a sense of belonging.
This redefinition of identity is also explored in Xenia (2014), directed by Panos Koutras and screened during the LMU Greek Cinema Week: Homage to Xenios Zeus. While the film primarily addresses themes of queerness, sexuality, and family, it also engages deeply with questions of migration and identity. Despite having lived their entire lives in Greece, the two main characters find themselves searching for their estranged father in hopes of securing citizenship, following the death of their mother and the threat of deportation to Albania. This situation reopens the complex question of identity for individuals who have grown up between two cultures. As captured in Greek Cinema and Migration, many Albanian migrants face the paradox: “In Albania they called us Greeks. Here they call us Albanians.”[28] This quote encapsulates the in-betweenness experienced by migrants, who are often alienated from both their host society and their country of origin. In the case of Xenia, even though the brothers feel more connected to Greek culture, their need to prove their right to remain in the country where they were raised fundamentally challenges static notions of identity and national belonging.
On the other hand, Hostage (2005), directed by Constantine Giannaris and screened during the LMU Greek Cinema Week: Homage to Xenios Zeus, explores how community and empathy can emerge in the aftermath of trauma. The film is based on a real-life bus hijacking carried out by an Albanian migrant, who seeks revenge for the exploitation and humiliation he endured in Greek society, wounds tied not only to his status as a foreigner but also to his injured sense of masculine identity. Through the evolving dynamics between the hijacker and the bus passengers, the film challenges binary narratives of victim and aggressor, ultimately revealing how shared vulnerability can disrupt social boundaries and provoke moments of collective understanding.
By placing individuals from diverse backgrounds together in the confined space of a bus, Giannaris explores how intercultural contact can foster a deeper understanding of complex social realities. As the hours pass, the passengers begin to empathize with the hijacker, gradually uncovering the reasons behind his actions. As an Albanian migrant in Greece, he longs to return to Albania in hopes of reclaiming the dignity, rights, and freedom denied to him simply because he is not Greek. He believes that once he arrives, he will find safety and be able to care for the passengers who have become, in some ways, his responsibility. However, upon reaching the border, he is met not with refuge, but with hostility—culminating in his violent death. This tragic arc reflects a common struggle faced by migrants: the destabilizing realization that they may not feel fully accepted or safe in either their country of origin or the new society they have entered. Despite this, the film also portrays the formation of a temporary yet meaningful community among the passengers—one shaped by the shared trauma of the event and a newfound recognition of each other’s humanity.
Finally, and another film that explores the theme of migrants in Greece is the 2024 documentary Between a Rock and a Hard Place, directed by Thanos Liberopoulos and screened at the 2025 LAGFF. This film highlights Afghan women and children fleeing the Taliban and resettling in Greece. Through scenes of intercultural education, activism, and solidarity, the film depict migrants not as outsiders but as participants in redefining Greek civic life. This reflects Hellenisms’ emphasis on “contact zones” where cultures meet, interact, and transform.[29] In this sense, the shared classrooms between Greek children and migrants, as well as the public square become new spaces of Greekness, defined not by blood or religion, but by shared experience and collective aspiration, where two cultures meet to help each other.
In one of the final scenes of the film, a woman speaks about her longing to live in a country where she feels safe. Simultaneously, an Afghan woman is shown embracing a Greek woman, an image that powerfully illustrates how community can be forged through empathy and shared experience.[30] In this moment, identity transcends national or cultural boundaries and is reframed through human connection and solidarity, suggesting that belonging is no longer tied solely to origin, but to the relationships built in the consequence of displacement. This is especially evident in the role of women as cultural bridges. As noted in Hellenisms, women have played the larger role in constructing and transmitting the ethnic culture, e.g., the ethnic language, values, norms, within the family.[31] The embrace between the Afghan and Greek women not only symbolizes mutual recognition, but also reinforces the idea that women are central to sustaining cultural continuity and creating new forms of belonging across borders.
Together, these films challenge traditional, essentialist understandings of Greek identity by portraying migrants not as outsiders, but as integral participants in reshaping the social and cultural fabric of contemporary Greece. Through stories of racial exclusion (Black Stone), statelessness (Xenia), shared trauma and empathy (Hostage), and cross-cultural solidarity (Between a Rock and a Hard Place), Greek cinema reveals the deep complexities of belonging in a country that has long defined itself through notions of ethnic and religious purity. These cinematic narratives reflect what Stuart Hall describes as the fluid and relational nature of identity—constructed through representation, shaped by difference, and continually redefined through social interaction. Moreover, by highlighting the role of women in sustaining cultural memory and forging new communities, these films reinforce the idea that identity is not only produced through political institutions or historical narratives, but also through intimate human connections and everyday acts of care. In doing so, contemporary Greek cinema invites viewers to reimagine Greekness not as a closed category, but as an evolving space of encounter, negotiation, and shared humanity.
Part III: Post-War Greece and the Crisis of Institutional Belonging.
While earlier sections of this paper have examined how external forces, such as migration and displacement, have shaped Greek identity, this section turns inward, exploring how the aftermath of war fractured identity from within. Following the devastation of World War II and the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), Greece entered a turbulent period of reconstruction marked by political repression and deep ideological divisions. As Richard Clogg notes, “the civil war did not result in national reconciliation,” but rather produced a “deeply polarized society” defined by anti-communist authoritarianism and rigid narratives of national loyalty.[32] In this context, institutions such as education and child welfare became tools for enforcing state ideology. Children of political dissidents, especially those labeled orphans, were absorbed into systems designed not only to care for them but also to reframe their identities in accordance with state narratives.
The 2024 feature Giannis in the Cities, directed by Eleni Alexandrakis and screened at the 2025 Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, explores the intimate consequences of this institutional intervention. The film follows Giannis, a “double orphan,” who grows up moving from one childcare facility to another. Each institution, governed by different rules and ideologies, offers temporary belonging but also enforces a kind of erasure, of origin, of memory, and ultimately, of self. Despite the instability, Giannis builds emotional bonds with other boys like him, forming a sense of community rooted in shared displacement.
As he grows older, however, Giannis begins to question the narrative he has been told about his past. In one poignant scene, he tells a caregiver that he wants to stay in the home forever, revealing how meaningful it is for him to feel seen and safe.[33] But this fragile sense of belonging is soon destabilized as he learns about Greece’s political reality, particularly the way the post-war state used institutions to re-educate children and suppress dissident memory. The idea of being an orphan begins to unravel when Giannis discovers that his institutionalization was not an accident, but the result of his father’s political status as a rebel and that his mother was the queen.
In the film’s closing moments, Giannis reads a story about a soldier during the Junta, highlighting how children were taught to choose a “side” from an early age, whether that of the guerrillas, the rebels, or the homeland itself. [34] As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that these choices were never truly theirs to make. They were taught to love their nation before anything else and be willing to die for it,[35] and when confronted with the truth, many, like Giannis, experienced a profound identity crisis.
This moment resonates deeply with Stuart Hall’s argument that identity is “a matter of becoming as well as of being,” formed through memory, narrative, and power.[36] Giannis’s journey illustrates how the post-war Greek state not only marginalized political others, but reshaped their children’s lives through mythmaking and institutional control. His sense of self is not recovered through a simple reunion with the past, but through confronting the mechanisms that erased it. In this way, Giannis in the Cities expands the filmic conversation about Greekness by showing that trauma, silence, and ideological reprogramming are not just historical facts, they are inherited wounds that continue to shape the present.
This internal confrontation with history complements the broader themes of migration and diasporic longing discussed earlier in the paper. Just as migrants struggle to redefine identity across borders, Giannis and others like him grapple with the erasure of their roots within the borders of Greece itself. Whether through forced migration or forced mythologies, these stories reveal Greekness not as a pure essence, but as a contested space where memory, representation, and survival intersect.
Part IV: Greek Emigration and the Complexity of Diasporic Identity
While much attention has been given to migration into Greece, the phenomenon of Greek emigration has also played a significant role in shaping national identity. In the decades following the Greek Civil War, the country faced widespread poverty, political repression, and limited economic opportunities. The trauma of internal conflict, combined with a fragile post-war economy and ideological polarization, left much of the rural population impoverished and marginalized. As Richard Clogg notes, “between 1960 and 1973, over 600,000 Greeks emigrated, the majority to West Germany under bilateral labor agreements.” [37] While intended as a temporary economic solution, migration often resulted in long-term displacement, family separation, and cultural estrangement. This mass exodus contributed to the perception of Greece as a country unable to support its own population, challenging official narratives of national strength, cohesion, and modernity.[38] The children of these migrant families, whether raised in Greece or abroad, found themselves caught between two worlds, developing hybrid identities shaped by both absence and inheritance.
The 2024 documentary A Couple of Years, directed by Lydia Konsta and featured in the 2025 Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, offers an intimate exploration of the emotional and cultural impact of this migratory wave. Through first-person testimonies and archival footage, the film reveals the psychological toll of growing up between two nations. Many of the individuals featured, now adults, describe the absence of their parents, who worked long hours in factories, as well as their feelings of cultural alienation and persistent outsider status. A recurring motif is the Rückkehrillusion, or the illusion of return, a dream of going back to Greece that shaped their expectations but often went unrealized.[39]
This duality, between longing for a homeland and feeling disconnected from it, exemplifies Stuart Hall’s assertion that identity is not a stable or fixed essence, but a product of continuous negotiation shaped by history, memory, and context.[40] The individuals portrayed in A Couple of Years frequently describe themselves as existing in a liminal space, neither entirely Greek nor fully German. This sense of hybridity aligns with the framework offered in Hellenisms, where identity is conceptualized as emerging through “cross-cultural fertilizations” and the lived experience of cultural intersection.[41]
The film demonstrates that, for many in the Greek diaspora, Greekness is not defined solely by national borders or cultural purity, but by affective ties—through memory, family, language, and loss. It illustrates how diaspora communities remain emotionally and culturally connected to Greece, even as they actively participate in reshaping what it means to be Greek within transnational contexts. Those who left Greece in search of better opportunities often find themselves shaped by multiple cultural influences, growing up between worlds. In doing so, they construct hybrid identities—neither entirely rooted in the homeland nor fully absorbed by their host country, but instead forming a unique cultural space of their own.
Conclusion: Representation, Migration, and Belonging.
As Greece continues to navigate the challenges of economic instability, migration, and global cultural transformation, questions of identity and belonging remain at the center of public and artistic discourse. The films examined in this paper: Giannis in the Cities, The Return that Never Was, Unforgettable Homeland, Asia Minor, A Couple of Years, Xenia, Hostage, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, and Black Stone—offer powerful insights into the ongoing redefinition of Greek identity. Far from presenting a fixed or singular narrative of Greekness, these films reflect a plural and evolving understanding of what it means to be Greek in the 21st century.
Drawing on Richard Clogg’s historical account of Greece’s nation-building process and population movements, this paper has shown how official narratives have long emphasized ethnic homogeneity and Orthodox Christianity as the cornerstones of national identity.[42] Yet the realities of migration, both into and out of Greece, have continuously challenged this vision. As Clogg notes, the trauma of forced displacement and the pressures of integration have left a lasting mark on the Greek national psyche.[43]
The theoretical perspectives offered by Stuart Hall and the writers in Hellenisms provide a critical lens for understanding how identity is shaped not by static categories, but by representation, memory, and cultural exchange. Hall’s emphasis on identity as a process “constantly being produced and exchanged” through systems of representation[44] aligns with the cinematic portrayals analyzed in this paper, where identity is formed through trauma, displacement, hybridity, and emotional bonds.
Importantly, this paper has also highlighted how identity is shaped not only across borders, but also within them. Through the analysis of Giannis in the Cities, it becomes clear that Greek identity has also been fractured by internal ideologies, state control, and institutional violence. Giannis’s story, shaped by post-war repression and state mythmaking, demonstrates how identity can be distorted through forced narratives and political agendas. His eventual rejection of those myths mirrors the broader struggle to reclaim Greekness as something plural and emotionally grounded rather than ideologically imposed.
Ultimately, these films function as more than artistic works; they are cultural interventions that interrogate dominant ideologies and propose new ways of imagining belonging. They reveal that Greek identity is not inherited or geographically bound, but negotiated across borders, histories, and personal experiences. In doing so, they contribute to a broader, more inclusive vision of what Greekness can mean in a polycrisis-ridden, globalized world. In amplifying stories of migration, memory, and cultural exchange, contemporary Greek cinema not only reflects the nation’s shifting identity, but also reimagines what it means to belong in an increasingly interconnected world.
Works Cited
Anagnostou, Yiorgos. “Against Cultural Loss: Immigration, Life History, and the Enduring ‘Vernacular.’” Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, edited by Katerina Zacharia, Ashgate, 2016, pp. 355–377.
Clogg, Richard. A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge UP, 2002.
Clogg, Richard. “Nation Building, the ‘Great Idea’ and National Schism 1831–1922.” A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge UP, 2002, pp. 47–97.
Clogg, Richard. “The Legacy of The Civil War 1950–74.” A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge UP, 2002, pp. 142–165.
Hall, Stuart. “Introduction.” Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, Sage, 2013, pp. xvii–xxvi.
Hall, Stuart. “The Spectacle of the ‘Other.’” Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, Sage, 2013, pp. 215–280.
Hall, Stuart. “The Work of Representation.” Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, Sage, 2013, pp. 1–56.
Jakovides, Spiros, director. Black Stone. Heretic, 2022.
Konsta, Lydia, director. A Couple of Years. 2024.
Koutras, Panos, director. Xenia, 2014.
Alexandrakis, Eleni, director. Giannis in the Cities, 2024.
Gioumpasis, Athanasios, director. The Return That Never Was. Cyprus 1974–2024, 2024.
Leontis, Artemis. “Greek American Identity: What Women’s Handwork Tells Us.” Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, edited by Katerina Zacharia, Ashgate, 2016, pp. 379–398.
Liberopoulos, Thanos, director. Between a Rock and a Hard Place. 2024.
Phillis, Philip-Edward. “Our Own People? Repatriation, Citizenship, Belonging.” Greek Cinema and Migration, 1991–2016, edited by Lydia Papadimitriou and Eleni Papadaki, Edinburgh UP, 2020, pp. 173–195.
Sarioglou, Irini, director. Unforgettable Homeland, Asia Minor. 2024.
Zacharia, Katerina. “‘Reel’ Hellenisms: Perceptions of Greece in Greek Cinema.” Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, edited by Katerina Zacharia, Ashgate, 2016, pp. 321–353.
Giannaris, Konstantinos, director. Hostage, 2005.
[1] Stuart Hall, Representation, Second Edition, xviii–xix.
[2] Link to website: https://www.lagff.org/event/lmu-greek-cinema-week-in-collaboration-with-lagff/
[3] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 47–97.
[4] Ibid., 50.
[5] Ibid., 66–67, 87.
[6] Katerina Zacharia, “Reel Hellenisms: Perceptions of Greece in Greek Cinema,” 321–325.
[7] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 91, 142–165.
[8] Yiorgos Anagnostou, “Against Cultural Loss: Immigration, Life History, and the Enduring ‘Vernacular,’” in Hellenisms, 358.
[9] Stuart Hall, Recording Reality: Documentary Film and Television, 97.
[10] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 50.
[11] Ibid., 91.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., 66–67, 87.
[15] Unforgettable Homaland, Asia Minor 1:29
[16] Stuart Hall, Recording Reality: Documentary Film and Television, 66.
[17] Stuart Hall, “The Work of Representation,” 15.
[18] Yiorgos Anagnostou, “Against Cultural Loss: Immigration, Life History, and the Enduring ‘Vernacular,’” 358.
[19] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 164
[20] The return that never was, Cyprus 1974 – 2024, 2:35
[21] The return that never was, Cyprus 1974 – 2024, 8:22
[22] The return that Never Was, 1:04:28
[23] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 66–67.
[24] Stuart Hall, “The Spectacle of the ‘Other,’”, 225.
[25] Ibid., 229.
[26] In this scene, the mother speaks critically about the taxi driver in Greek, assuming he cannot understand her. When he responds fluently, she is visibly surprised. He then clarifies that he has never been to Africa and was raised entirely in Greece, challenging her assumptions about his identity.
[27] Stuart Hall, “Introduction,” Representation, xviii–xix.
[28] Philip-Edward Phillis, “Our Own People? Repatriation, Citizenship, Belonging,” 180.
[29] Katerina Zacharia, Hellenisms, 325–337.
[30] Between A Rock and a Hard Place, 15:10
[31] Leontis, Artemis, Greek-American Identity: What Women’s Handwork Tells Us, 380
[32] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 147.
[33] Giannis in the Cities, 56:45
[34] Giannis in the Cities, 1:22:33
[35] Giannis in the Cities, 6:44
[36] Stuart Hall, Introduction, xviii
[37] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 144.
[38] Ibid., 144–145.
[39] A Couple Years 0:19:20
[40] Stuart Hall, “Introduction,” xix.
[41] Yiorgos Anagnostou, “Against Cultural Loss: Immigration, Life History, and the Enduring ‘Vernacular,’” 357–358.
[42] Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 66–91.
[43] Ibid., 91, 144–145.
[44] Stuart Hall, “Introduction,” xix.